This casebook is part of a set of materials written by the members of the Making Thinking Visible Project. It offers high school, college, and community college teachers' multiple perspectives on the teaching and learning of collaborative planning, and on classroom inquiry and practice. The casebook explains collaborative planning (a writing…

A review of current research in writing to learn in the content areas provides a basis for focusing on instructional strategies, use of text structure frames, and metacognitive writing strategies. Students can use writing to comprehend to learn content area text in a variety of ways based on their particular learning objectives for that particular…

A study investigated the composing process to examine why different types of instruction have different effects on composing products. The study contrasted three treatments: (1) presenting students with models (the traditional method); (2) the general procedures approach stressing freethinking process; and (3) a method stressing task-specific…

Several strategies for improving communication between parents and teachers are explored in this handbook. Section I provides background information on parent-teacher communication. Recommendations to teachers for enhancing parent involvement in education are provided. Section II describes communication strategies for use in parent-teacher…

Writing teachers should employ a pragmatic-eclectic approach to help freshman students become acquainted with as many writing models as possible. To privilege one model over the many others is to ignore the student's need for self- and world-discovery. The composition classroom has become the current center of critical reading and thinking skills,…

The purpose of this guide is to assist teachers in preparing their students to write effectively, both on the Georgia Grade Three Writing Assessment and in other contexts. Using Quality Core Curriculum (QCC) writing objectives, teachers are encouraged to use the information in this guide to create transparencies and handouts for students. The…

This book offers 25 mini-lessons which focus on the elements of good writing. Intended for teachers of grades 3-6, the book provides practical teaching suggestions to introduce particular elements and strategies, as well as activities that will allow students to practice new techniques. Using excerpts from favorite children's authors' works and…

The role of the literature review in a research project is discussed, in the context of classroom research on language teaching. The discussion is intended for teachers undertaking such research with little or no experience, and offers step-by-step guidelines for conducting and using a review of literature in second language learning. First,…

The emptiness and nothingness associated with writer's block is often described as a kind of death, a place where there is nothing to decide, nothing about which to express an opinion. However, for students who enter the writing classroom from a different culture, the problem may not be lack of ideas, but conflicting ideas. Some of these students…

These 10 fliers focus on strategies to improve students' writing. The fliers are: (1) Improving Writing (covers general points related to all types of writing); (2) Writing Narrative (covers the main points to writing narrative, helping children to build up a repertoire of different types of narrative); (3) Writing Poetry (covers the main points…

This book is a story for and by real teachers. In the book, two seasoned veterans recount their 23-year collaboration to find ways to help students improve learning in their content area subjects. Over the years, the book explains, the two educators have developed a host of practical activities and strategies to infuse the processes of learning…

Offering developmental students comprehensive, step-by-step instruction for writing expressive, informative, and persuasive essays, this book showcases the writing process and presents a wide variety of engaging assignments. It strengthens students' reading, thinking, and writing skills; validates their diverse and unique cultural experiences; and…

This study described how a fifth grade reading and writing class utilized short stories to comprehend how authors used eight different writing techniques in their own writing. The researcher found that when the fifth grade students comprehended how to use a writing technique they were able to apply it to their own personal, expressive writing. The…

Third grade children from urban elementary schools in a southern city wrote, rewrote, and edited stories using strategies developed by their teachers during an interactive staff development program. They were participants in the National Head Start/Public School Transition Demonstration Project, a longitudinal study of the transition experience of…

This final report discusses the outcomes of a 3-year project that studied the effectiveness of word processing tools in improving the literacy skills of students with learning disabilities in grades 4-12. In Year 1 (1994-95), four text entry strategies were compared in 132 students with learning disabilities: keyboarding instruction, alternative…